“Magic is organising chaos. And while oceans of mystery remain, we have deduced that this requires two things. Balance and control. Without them, chaos will kill you.”
Notes
The short ones, newest first. Everything together is on the home page.
Pretty much everything goes full circle.
The other week some students asked me if I believe in magic. What followed was a conversation about what magic is, how we find it in the world and then a detour into quantum physics and life after death. I'll probably remember that one for a long time.
“Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
I've found the more I age, the less I actually care about; literally no fucks given about most things. But the things I do care about are the things that get my time and energy. Exactly as it should be.
Too many variables make things complicated. Complications are tiring.
“To be neutral does not mean to be indifferent or insensitive. You don't have to kill your feelings. It's enough to kill hatred within yourself.”
Humans are really good at complicating things that are quite simple.
Most people think they have a mindset problem when in reality it's a capacity problem.
Nobody wants to hurt or feel sad, but many great things have come from a place of pain. I see it as the universe's way of restoring the balance.
I really dislike wellness culture. Please take your matcha smoothie and your ice bath and politely fuck off.
Doing less makes space for greater frequency in fewer things.
You will get things wrong and make choices that don't heed results. It's part of the process - and the faster you get it wrong, the sooner you'll get it right.
We've become conditioned to believe that if something doesn't happen immediately, it's not going to work at all. Short term thinking and instant gratification are the enemy of many great plans.
You can be proactive or reactive. You'll have a natural disposition toward one, but it's still trainable.
Being useful beats being vulnerable.
“Every myth, every fable must have some roots. Something lies among those roots.”
In my experience winners often don't know how to lose. When it happens they either lose the plot or fade into obscurity. Losers on the other hand, learn how to persist and deal with disappointment, so when they finally figure out how to win, they become an entirely different animal.
It's always useful to ask if you're making something yours, when it isn't actually yours. Carrying things that don't belong to you is one of the easiest ways to spend capacity.
Curiosity is more useful than motivation.